About:

Associate ProfessorRobert Preece is a world-class expert on gamma-ray spectroscopy; as a co-investigator for the Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor on NASA's Fermi Space Telescope, launched on June 11, 2008, he is uncovering the clues that will reveal for the first time the incredibly efficient mechanism that gamma-ray bursts use to harness the immense energies that are visible across half the universe.

He received his B.A. in Math and Physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982, a M.Sc. in Physics from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics in 1990 from the Physics Department of the University of Maryland in College Park. He then moved to Huntsville, Alabama, and joined the BATSE gamma-ray astronomy team at Marshall Space Flight Center as an NRC postdoc. He started at UAH as a researcher in 1993. In 2013, he joined the faculty of the newly-formed Department of Space Science at UAH as a founding member.

Research Areas

Gamma-ray Bursts

High-energy Astrophysics

Astrophysical Jets

General Relativity and Quantum Gravity

Education

1990: Ph.D. in Physics, University of Maryland at College Park

1985: M.S. in Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1982: B.A. (with Distinction) in Mathematics and Physics, University of California, Berkeley